Christopher Lykes, 36, of Swansea is charged with five counts of Medically Indigent Confident Violation and one count of Disclosure of Confidential Information.
/ Source: Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center
COLUMBIA, S.C (WACH)— A suspect in a missing records case involving the Department of Health and Human Services has been arrested.
Christopher Lykes, 36, of Swansea is charged with five counts of Medically Indigent Confident Violation and one count of Disclosure of Confidential Information. Lykes was booked at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center.
During an agency performance review, the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (SCDHHS) discovered last week that an employee working within the Medicaid program inappropriately transferred personal information of 228,435 Medicaid beneficiaries to his personal email account, constituting a violation of agency policy.
The department discovered the transfers on Tuesday, April 10 and immediately contacted the SouthCarolina Law Enforcement Division to investigate the incident and also informed other state and federal agencies. The employee, who worked in Columbia, was terminated last week. It is not yet known why theindividual sent the information to his personal email account but law enforcement is actively investigating.
The transferred information was contained in 17 spreadsheets dating back to January 31, and included: names, phone numbers, addresses, birth dates and Medicaid ID numbers. Importantly, no private medical records or financial information was transmitted. In more than 22,000 of the cases, Medicare numbers, which contain Social Security numbers, were also linked to beneficiaries’ names. More than 90% of the affected beneficiaries live in six counties: Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell, Lexington, Orangeburg and Richland.
The agency is sending personal letters to all affected beneficiaries notifying them of this incident and explaining how to protect their information moving forward. Beneficiaries can also find more information at.
Although no health information was released, to address the possibility of identity theft and to give beneficiaries peace of mind, SCDHHS is making available a free year of identity protection services to every affected individual through a credit reporting service, which includes a free credit report Daily credit monitoring to detect any suspicious activity, and a $1 million identity theft insurance policy.
SCDHHS has created a website at www.myscmedicaid.org to answer questions from beneficiaries and help them enroll in the free protection services. SCDHHS has established a toll-free call center at 888-829-6561 for affected Medicaidbeneficiaries.
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